Mr. Blue: Memoirs of a Renegade Read Free Page B

Grauman had built three great palaces to
honor the movies. The downtown Million Dollar theater was the first, but when
he realized the city's wealth was moving west he built two on Hollywood
Boulevard, the Chinese and Egyptian. It had a long walk from the box office to
the lobby that was lined with images of Ancient Egypt and giant kitsch statues
of Rameses II and Nefertiti, or somebody with a head like an animal. That first
night on my latest runaway, I went to the plush Hawaiian, farther east on the
boulevard, which was showing the original Mummy with Boris Karloff and a new sequel, The Mummy
Returns. That scared away my troubles for a few hours.
    When I came out, a cold wind had risen. No rain was
falling, but the sidewalk and street were dark where the rain had come down
while I was inside. I turned up Gower. The Hollywood Hills started a block
north of the theater. Beyond Franklin Avenue was Whitley Heights. It was
"old" Hollywood and looked as if it belonged in Naples or Capri. Once
fashionable enough for Gloria Swanson, Ben Turpin and Ramon Novarro, in the war
years it was still nice, although since then it has lost favor as Hollywood's
surrounding streets became infested with poverty and poverty's handmaidens,
crime, drugs and prostitution.
    Rain began to fall. I tried to find shelter from the
wind. Heading for where my father worked, I walked along Franklin and turned
back down Ivar. The marquee had been turned off and the box office was closed.
I went down the alley beside the building to the stage entrance. I didn't know
the old man on the door, but he knew my father and remembered me from an
earlier visit. "We were working the Mayan downtown. It was Abie's Irish Rose . . . or maybe Song of Norway."
    I remembered Abie's Irish
Rose at the Mayan, but not the old man. It was immaterial; he motioned
me to come in. I shook my head.
    "When's curtain?"
    "Ten fifty-two . . . 'bout half an hour."
    "I'll be back."
    "Here's your dad now. Hey, Ed!"
    My father, wearing the white bib overalls of a
stagehand, was crossing backstage. He turned his head, saw me and hardened his
expression. As he walked over, his jaw muscles pulsing, I wanted to turn and run.
I was sure he wouldn't show his anger here, but I knew the fury of his
exasperation. He was never mean, but frustration sometimes overcame him. He
looked at me: "Just like a bad penny," he said.
    What did that mean? Bad penny? I'd never heard the
phrase and had no idea what it meant. Still, the tension of the situation
imprinted it on my memory so that years later I remembered this moment whenever
I heard the phrase.
    My father took his keys from his pocket, "Go wait
in the car," he said. "It's around the corner on Franklin."
    I took the keys and went out. His car, a '37 Plymouth
with the first streamlined ship as hood ornament, was easy to find. The white
stood out in an era when dark colors, especially Henry Ford's black, still
dominated. On the windshield was a decal "A," which meant the car was
allowed the basic ration of four gallons of gas a week. Gas coupons were issued
and handed over in the gas station. Stealing and selling them would become my
first monetary crime.
    I
unlocked the car and got in to wait, listening to the rain hit the roof,
watching it bounce on the ground. It was hypnotic, soothing, and I must have
dozed off. I hadn't really slept the night before. I closed my eyes with cars
parked all around. When I opened them again, the other cars were gone and my
father was knocking on the window.
    I opened the door lock and slid over to make room. I
was wary, for although my father was generous and loving, once or twice he had
lost his temper and cuffed me around, yelling: "What in God's name is wrong
with you? You can't do what you do. You'll . . . you'll end up—" his
anguish stifled his words. His torment never rose to anything near abuse, but
it made me feel terrible to upset him and I invariably promised reform.
    This time he avoided looking at me as he